Over The River

Pending lawsuits postpone Over The River

Art project on hold until three legal cases resolved

Artist Christo announces that the exhibition date for the proposed "Over The River" project has been temporarily postponed until three legal cases formed against the federal and state governments - not OTR Corp. - are resolved. Jeff Shane/ Daily Record

Internationally acclaimed artist Christo announced Tuesday that the exhibition date for the proposed “Over The River” project has been temporarily postponed until three legal cases formed against the federal and state governments are resolved.

The cases include a regulatory appeal to the Interior Board of Land Appeals in Washington; a lawsuit filed in federal court by the University of Denver School of Law - Environmental Law Clinic on behalf of the opposition group Rags Over the Arkansas River against the Bureau of Land Management; and a lawsuit filed against Colorado State Parks for its 2011 Agreement with OTR, also filed by ROAR.

Over the River illustration

“For that reason, our team decided that it is not easy, but a wise decision that we cannot have the date of the exhibition of the project because we have these cases hanging on us,” Christo said.

A motion by the BLM to dismiss a lawsuit by ROAR was denied in early July by U.S. District Court Judge John L. Kane, who also issued a Stay on the suit filed by ROAR while an appeals board of the Department of the Interior also considers the matter.

Kane ordered OTR to honor the Stay and commence no action on the agency's November 2011 construction authorization until the administrative appeals process has run its course. He also ordered that the BLM is responsible for “preserving the status quo by monitoring and effectuating OTR.

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ROAR filed a motion Friday in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado to ask Kane to amend his Stay issued July 5 to more strictly accomplish his stated intent to have BLM pause OTR construction while a third party administrative appeal is being considered by the IBLA.

Steve Coffin, a spokesperson for OTR Corp., said Christo had hoped the lawsuits would have been further along in the process than where they are now.

Over the River illustration (courtesy)

“Judge Kane's decision was just another reminder on how long this legal process can take,” Coffin said.

Christo said the other activity involving the project that does not require work on the physical land — the financing, the bighorn sheep habitat, the formulation of the event management plan — will continue to move forward. Other aspects of the project also remain unchanged, including the number of installation days and the comprehensive set of more than 100 mitigation measures.

Application submittal for the remaining permits required for the project — a Special Use Permit by the Colorado Department of Transportation and a Chaffee County Special Event Permit — are on hold pending the outcome of the legal suits. Christo and his team met with Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday to update him on the project, and Tuesday, Christo met individually with media representatives, as well as local commerce and government officials and project supporters from Fremont and Chaffee counties.

The two-week temporary work of art was scheduled to take place in August 2015. Following that timeline, drilling would have begun in February 2013, the staging activities would have started this December and equipment would have had to be ordered next week.

Christo remains optimistic that the project eventually will move forward.

“I am always confident,” he said. “I am 77 years old, and if I am not confident then Jeanne-Claude and myself would not (have completed) 22 projects in the last 50 years. With no optimism, we would not do anything — we always see the silver lining on everything.”

ROAR spokesperson Joan Anzelmo said her group is equally as confident that the project will shut down for good.

“ROAR will continue to work hard to expose the destructive and dangerous nature of Christo's proposed Over The River project and the significant impacts it would present to people and wildlife along the Arkansas River in Bighorn Sheep Canyon and on U.S. Highway 50 for upwards of four years, including the construction phase, display phase and rehab phase,” she said on an emailed statement to the Daily Record. “ROAR is even more confident than Christo — and ROAR believes that the OTR project will never happen.”

Christo and the OTR team announced in February that the exhibition period for the proposed project would be pushed back a full year to allow more time for Event Management Plans to be developed, as well as to reinstate the full 28-month installation schedule as included in the Final Environmental Impact Statement.

The decision to push the date also gave the Fremont County Commissioners more time to consider Christo's request for a Temporary Use Permit, which was granted with certain conditions in late March. The pending legal suits, Christo said, are part of reality.

“It's part of the project,” he said. Some of Christo's other projects, including the “Surrounded Islands” and “Running Fence” also have been temporarily delayed by similar suits but eventually were completed.

The OTR project involves about six miles of fabric panels to be suspended over sections of the Arkansas River between Salida and Cañon City. It is expected to generate more than $121 million in Colorado and $1.58 million in total state and local tax revenue.

More than 620 temporary jobs are projected to be created because of the project, and about 344,000 people are expected to visit during the 14-day exhibition period.

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